Iraq's directly elected government is struggling to impose its authority and control against an intense movement of military resistance. It is fanned by the continuing presence of United States troops and a grave lack of resources for nation-building after the invasion that overthrew the Saddam Hussein regime more than two years ago.
Yesterday's conference in Brussels, attended by 70 states, pledged political support for these efforts - a notable development in transatlantic co-operation following widespread European opposition to the war. It sought and heard assurances that Sunni groups will be given fuller representation, especially in drafting a new constitution over coming weeks.
There was a broad welcome for the Iraqi prime minister's statement that his government wants to achieve political and economic independence without turning Iraq into a security state. The question one may ask, however, is whether it will be possible to do this without laying down a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops as part of a programme for the Iraqi government to take control of security and to establish full sovereignty over Iraq's substantial economic and natural resources. Resistance is continually reproduced by the presence of US forces, as is clear from the latest casualty figures - notwithstanding the ruthlessly destructive means involved, which are directed as much against Iraqi security and civilian personnel as American and other troops.
European and neighbouring states have a direct interest in seeing a stable and democratic Iraq emerge from the forcible change of regime, however much they disagreed with it. The second Bush administration has followed quite a different line than the first in relation to European allies, having concluded their support is needed to achieve its own foreign policy objectives. Public opinion in the US and the UK, which has swung increasingly against the war, reinforces this change. The new orientation was affirmed at the US-EU summit in Washington this week - ironically so in the light of European disarray and perceived weakness following last week's failed summit. Progress in Iraq and in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations will be a measure of this transatlantic effectiveness and a continuing incentive for the EU to recover its external cohesion and autonomy.
The prolonged negotiations which followed last January's elections produced a new Iraqi cabinet in April more representative than many critics expected. It drew Shias and Kurds together with secular parties and with a definite opening towards the Sunnis who participated minimally in the elections and tended to support the resistance. Sunni leaders are now more willing to become involved in the constitutional exercise and have a veto over its passage.
To the extent that they do become more involved they will reinforce demands that a timetable be laid down for the withdrawal of foreign troops.